


recidivism

by handydandynotebook



Series: eep [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Background Crossover, Crack Treated Seriously, Crack and Angst, Dark Crack, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, Gore, Heavy Angst, I Don't Even Know, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Neil Hargrove is His Own Warning, Not Happy, Past Character Death, Post-Canon, Prison, Self-Harm, Sexual Violence, Strained Relationships, Suicidal Thoughts, WTF, Weird Plot Shit, i cannot emphasize enough that this is crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:55:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27343108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handydandynotebook/pseuds/handydandynotebook
Summary: Susan pleads guilty.“Why did you do it?” they ask, all of them, everyone, everyone except for Max.“He put the peanut butter in the refrigerator,” is what she says to the microphone shoved in her face on her day of sentencing. “I hated cold peanut butter. He put it in the refrigerator just to get to me and I suppose I finally…”There are a thousand eyes on her but the only stare Susan returns is Max’s stare, intense and never wavering.“Snapped.”
Relationships: Billy Hargrove's Mother & Susan Hargrove, Susan Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Susan Hargrove & Tory Nichols
Series: eep [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2146869
Comments: 10
Kudos: 18





	recidivism

**Author's Note:**

> i'm still in crackland. dark crackland to be specific. "next time i'll post fluff," i say and then do this instead. have i overplayed my dead!neil hand? prolly but idgaf, i'm smoking crack in crackity-crack-crackland. adding to the crack, we've smth of a cobra kai crossover. ig it's an au where the s2 finale went down the same, except in the 80s and tory gets arrested for inciting the school brawl/putting sam in the hospital. not that that's particularly relevant, since this is susan-centric and tory's a secondary presence. i have no idea what kind of person billy's mom is bc she gets even less screentime than susan and SHE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A NAME (which i will proceed to parody mercilessly). totally made this lady up, idfk who she is so ig i sort of went with a sheryl goodspeed type? 
> 
> references to some of my other work but this is still understandable as a standalone. references to various other media in spades.
> 
> dead dove tag's for the sexual violence. while there is nothing particularly graphic, it is heavily referenced and present through a fair amount of the fic.

Susan pleads guilty. 

“Why did you do it?” they ask, all of them, everyone, everyone except for Max. 

“He put the peanut butter in the refrigerator,” is what she says to the microphone shoved in her face on her day of sentencing. “I hated cold peanut butter. He put it in the refrigerator just to get to me and I suppose I finally…” 

There are a thousand eyes on her but the only stare Susan returns is Max’s stare, intense and never wavering.

“Snapped.” 

* * *

Susan doesn’t have a history of violence, at least not before that night. Neil’s physical and emotional abuse are taken into consideration. Her own cooperation with the authorities serves her well. 

She’ll be spending the rest of her life in prison but it will be a low-security prison instead of maximum.

It could be worse. It could be so much worse. 

Susan clings to the sentiment like a lifeline. She’s found that it’s often easier to get herself through life’s trials and tribulations as long as she bears in mind that it could be worse, that it could be so much worse. She wants to think it’s a good attitude to have and not one that helped create her situation in the least.

* * *

Susan just about has a heart attack when the blonde enters her cell, cigarette between her fingers, For a few seconds doesn’t even realize what’s spooked her so, then the woman does this thing with her tongue as she sizes Susan up and— 

_God Almighty, it’s Billy with boobs._

“Hargrove,” she says, tracing a fingertip over Susan’s identification tag. “Yeah, I used to be a Hargrove too.” 

An older Billy with boobs. About Susan’s age, some strands of silver weaved between the blonde. Delicate crinkles at the corners of her eyes— the only delicate thing about her. Shaggy, messily long hair tumbles over her shoulders in tangled waves, curtaining her own identification tag so Susan can’t read it. She doesn’t actually know this woman’s name, Neil hardly ever spoke about her and never referred to her as anything beyond “that bitch” or “that whore.” 

“Hargrove isn’t a particularly uncommon surname,” Susan says lightly. 

“It’s not.” She takes a drag on the cigarette and casually plops down on Susan’s bunk. “But I know for a fact your Neil was my Neil, saw your story on the news. You bludgeoned him to death because he put peanut butter in the fridge.” 

Susan swallows and braces herself for this conversation to go sideways. Then this woman bursts out laughing— no, cackling and God, the sharp edge to it is so familiar it sends chills down her spine. She gives Susan’s knee a jovial slap, some ash flying from her cigarette. 

“Fucker always did like his peanut butter cold! Should’ve known right then he was the devil in disguise! What kind of soulless monster eats cold peanut butter, eh?” Her hand returns to Susan’s knee, this time gives it a squeeze. “Tell me, darling, how’s my boy?” 

Susan feels like she’s been sucker punched. “B-Billy?” 

“Yeah.” The woman squints. “What, Neil have more boys after my Billy?” 

“Oh, n-no.” Susan swallows again. “Forgive me, this whole day’s just been a lot to take in.” 

Her heart twists in her chest and she bites into the inside of her cheek, sinks her teeth in until she tastes blood. For a moment, she considers telling the truth. Billy’s been dead for four years. He’d hung in there about a week after the Starcourt explosion, then his health took a downturn and he didn’t bounce back. Susan could tell her this. Susan could truthfully tell her that she was more or less the last thing he talked about— the last thing that made sense, anyway. 

“Billy’s in college. UCLA.” Susan smiles like it doesn’t hurt to breathe.

“Really?” Her eyes go wide, sparkling like sunlight refracted on ocean waves. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, he always was pretty bright.” 

_Always._

She says that as if she were around for always, as if her presence had been any more than memories Susan wasn’t privy to, occasional outbursts that struck Susan by proxy, and a few faded photos Susan wasn’t supposed to look at. 

“Maybe I’ll look him up when I get outta here. I’m sprung tomorrow as a matter of fact.” 

If that’s the case, Susan wonders if she should backtrack. Tell her the truth. But then she realizes if this woman really wanted to talk to her son, ‘maybe’ would not have been the word she used. If their positions were reversed and it was Susan who’d had no contact with Max in years, she’d be shaking this lady by the shoulders and demanding a phone number or an address, pelting her with desperate, rapid fire questions regarding anything and everything she knew about her daughter. 

“Congrats on your release,” Susan chirps, not a bit bitter she’ll never have one of her own. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you the grand tour before I go,” she says, crushing the cigarette out against the painted brick of the wall. “Introduce you to your new cellmate. I pulled some strings, made sure you got a good one.” 

Dumbfounded, Susan flounders. Meaningless syllables stutter off her tongue. 

“What?” she laughs again and it’s different from the cackling, a much gentler sound. “You took out the bastard who cracked my eye socket. Didn’t think I’d leave you all high and dry, did you?” 

Susan just stares in awe at this uncomfortably familiar face she never expected to meet at all, let alone here. Let alone now. 

“No way, amiga,” she chuckles. “After what you did, giving you a tour and Tory is the least I can do. Hell, if I were sticking around this joint, I’d pamper you like a goddamn princess.” 

That hand on Susan’s knees slides up to her thigh, pretty lashes winking at her. There’s another squeeze and then it lets go, lingering for a few ginger pats over the stark orange fabric. 

Susan numbly follows her around the prison. She’s shown the rec room, the mess hall, the yard. They’re all dingy, shabby places but Susan supposes she’s lucky that they exist at all. There’s also a library and that’s where she’s introduced to her cellmate, a much younger girl than she was expecting with narrow features, coloring her fingernails in black Sharpie marker. 

She glances up when the two of them approach and pushes herself off the bookshelf she’d been leaning against, trotting over. Her eyes glitter with interest as she looks Susan up and down. 

“There she is, Little Miss Batter Up.” The girl flashes a grin and playfully nudges Susan’s shoulder. “Well, not _little,”_ she amends, huffing a laugh as she lifts a hand to compare their heights. “You’re taller in person than you looked on tv.” 

“Seems so, that’s the second time I’ve heard that today.” Susan chuckles nervously. 

“I’m Tory. With a ‘Y.’” She thrusts out her hand. 

There’s ink more permanent than Sharpie on the inside of her wrist. A manta tattooed into her skin reads, ‘Strike First. Strike Hard. No Mercy.’ Susan gulps but shakes her hand anyway. 

“Susan.” 

“So, Susan. Sweets tell you we’re gonna be roomies?” 

“Sweets,” Susan blurts stupidly.

“Short for Sweetshank.” The blonde beside Susan smirks proudly.

“That’s…that’s certainly something.” 

“We call her that ‘cause she made a shank out of candy. Melted down all these Jolly Ranchers and worked the tip till it was deadly as a razor blade,” Tory boasts, puffing her chest out and gazing at— _Sweetshank,_ apparently —as if she’s queen of the castle. 

Sweets slinks around Susan and idly throws her arm over Tory’s shoulder. 

“Wasn’t made to last but it took out the kidney I needed it to. Only one thief got to run C-Block and it sure as hell wasn’t gonna be that snitch bitch Letty Raines.” She snorts, face scrunching up as her nostrils flare. 

“You put her in her place.” Tory’s tongue peeks out as she bumps her hip and the older woman’s expression softens as she affectionately bumps her right back. 

Susan’s shock must show on her face because then they’re staring at her with matching looks of amusement. 

“Didn’t think it was gonna be all rainbows and sunshine in here just because it’s a women’s prison, did you?” 

The curve of her lips when she’s staring at Susan like that, almost taunting— it’s just too eerie. Susan tries not to appear as uncomfortable as she feels as she shifts her weight and picks at the stiff, starchy neckline of her uniform top. 

“Of course not.” 

“You don’t need to worry too much though,” Tory adds. “I’ll keep the bad bitches off your back, at least until you find your way around. I’ve got my instructions.” 

“That’s my baby girl.” Sweets kisses her cheek.

Susan pauses, drawing a gasp. “Is this your daughter?” 

Blue eyes blink feline, lazy and deceptively sharp. “She might as well be.”

“Sweets has basically been my mom since they sent me up this way.” Tory’s speaking to Susan but her eyes don’t leave the blonde, gaze soft and touched with something sad. “My real mom hasn’t been able to visit since I aged out of juvie. She can’t afford it, it’s just too far away.” 

“How old are you, honey?” Susan asks before she can stop herself, hoping that’s okay to do so and that she isn’t breaking any kind of prison etiquette. Susan would peg her as twenty tops, but frankly she looks like she could still be in high school. 

“Nineteen next month.” Tory clucks her tongue and pokes her apparent surrogate mother’s nose. “You better bring me a birthday present.” 

Sweets playfully nips at the finger in her face and Tory lets out a little squawk before jerking back, swiveling out from under her arm with a lopsided grin. 

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she swears. “Already got myself a job lined up on the outside. I’ll bring you a present, a cake, and load up your commissary to boot.” 

Tory’s grin slowly fades and Susan can tell she’s trying not to cry by the furious, rapid flutter of her lashes. “Shit…I miss you already and you’re not even gone yet! What am I supposed to do without you?” 

This suddenly feels private. Like a moment Susan is intruding upon. She doesn’t actually want to watch but somehow she can’t bring herself to leave. 

“Nonsense, we’ll talk on the phone every day and I’ll visit you so much, it’ll be like I never left,” she tuts, ruffling her fingers through Tory’s hair. 

“Every Friday?” Tory pleads quietly. 

“Every Friday, baby girl. I promise.” 

* * *

When Max comes to visit her in prison for the very first time, Susan doesn’t mention Billy’s mother. She also doesn’t mention the guard who’d forced her on her knees in the supply closet, tangled her hair in his meaty fist and crammed his cock down her throat, ramming it hard against her tonsils until she couldn’t breathe. Doesn’t mention the inmate who’d cornered her in the laundry room and crushed a forearm to her throat with bruising force, kept her pinned to the wall as she shoved a hand down her pants, practically thrust her whole fist inside. Doesn’t mention that she didn’t struggle either time, simply went doll limp and waited for them to finish taking whatever it was they wanted to take from her. 

The things she tells Max are very different than any of that. 

“It isn’t all bad in here,” she chirrups. “I’m not as bored as I thought I’d be. There’s actually a lot to keep me busy.” 

Max frowns and arches a brow. 

“Really,” Susan insists. “I got assigned laundry duty. We wash all the linens and all the uniforms so that takes awhile. And you know how much folding relaxes me.” 

“Yeah, folding prison laundry sounds very relaxing.” 

“My cellmate works in maintenance,” Susan goes on. “Young thing, around your age.” 

Max’s eyes flicker with a hint of surprise. 

“Tough and tumble kind of kid, I think you’d like her. She did karate before she got sent up this way. She’s not really supposed to do it here, but sometimes she shows off her moves anyway and I must say she’s very athletic. Remember that summer I wanted you to go to volleyball camp? Maybe I should’ve looked into karate camp instead, you probably would’ve been more interested in that.” 

Max pinches the bridge of her nose. “It doesn’t matter now, Mom…” 

“Though I don’t think I could’ve slept a wink if you were off at karate camp. At the time I didn’t even know girls did karate and I would’ve been too scared you’d get hurt—“ 

“Right, because there was no chance of that happening at home,” Max drily cuts in, rolling her eyes. 

A familiar sense of shame slithers up Susan’s spine. She nibbles her already thoroughly chewed thumbnail and changes the subject. 

“They have classes here. Art classes, bible study, even this horticultural program. Horticulture, isn’t that something?” 

“It’s something, alright,” Max grumbles. 

“Well, I think it’s nice.” 

“It’s not nice,” Max snaps, eyes blazing as she swings an arm for emphasis. “None of this is nice!” 

A few of the other inmates and their visitors look over. So do the guards on duty and although neither of them say anything this time, Susan has a feeling a second outburst won’t go unchecked. 

She tucks her chin down, wringing her hands. “Please don’t yell. We only get an hour together, I don’t want to spend it arguing.” 

Max’s arm returns to the table. She stares at Susan defiantly, head held high. Susan can tell she's still fuming but she makes an effort to lower her volume. “Don’t make me the bad guy just because I’m taking this seriously.” 

“You think I’m not taking this seriously?” 

“You’re talking about prison like it’s some fucking summer camp!” 

Susan pursues her lips. “Believe me, I’m well aware of where I am. However unpleasant, it’s my home now. I think I should make myself as comfortable as possible.” 

“But you shouldn’t be in here,” Max seethes, hissing through her teeth. “You know you shouldn’t be in here. I don’t want you to be okay with being locked up. You shouldn’t be okay with this, Mom, you should be angry! It’s not fair!” 

“I don’t have to tell you life isn’t fair, Max,” Susan sighs out, shoulders wearily slumping. 

Max’s stare wavers. Her nostrils flare in helpless frustration. Susan knows she’d punch through the bricks with her bare knuckles if she could, but she can’t. All she can do is scuff her sneakers against the floor and burn with fury on Susan’s behalf, fury Susan is too jaded to feel herself. 

“There’s also a library. I’m happy about that, it’s been a long time since I’ve curled up with a good book.” 

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Tory says, grimacing at the lilac bruising around Susan’s eye. “I guess I don’t have as much pull around here now that Sweets is gone.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Susan flaps her hand. 

She never actually expected this child to be her personal bodyguard. Though it isn’t for a lack of skill, but rather a lack of status. Tory is certainly skilled. She eagerly demonstrates her moves for Susan when the more lenient correctional officers are on staff or else out of sight entirely. She performs nimble and swift, eyes focused. The baggy prison uniform obscures a lithe but dense physique, muscles jaguar compact to her frame. 

From the way Tory talks, Susan suspects karate has something to do with why she’s locked up, but she’s never told the full story and Susan never asks. 

But now, she does ask a question she’s already pretty sure she knows the answer to. 

“Have you gotten ahold of her yet?” 

Tory shakes her head. She plops down on Susan’s bunk and draws one leg up to her chest while the other hangs over the side, lazily kicking back and forth. 

“I guess I keep missing her.” 

“That’s too bad,” Susan hums sympathetically. 

“I’ll get through sooner or later though. Maybe she gave me the wrong number on accident. We’ll get it worked out when she visits this week.” 

Susan doesn’t ask why Tory hopes she’ll visit this week, when she didn’t visit last week or the week before that. 

“I’m sure you will. Then you’ll have some peace of mind.” 

“Does your daughter visit every week?” 

“Every other.” Susan lowers the book in her hands and drums her fingers against the back cover. “She offered to come every week but it’s a long drive. Besides, I want her to focus on other things. College. Her friends.”

Tory rests her cheek against her knee. “You’re a good mom.” 

Susan winces. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Your eye bugging you?” 

“Mhm.” 

“Yeah, that looks like a real bitch.” Tory winces in sympathy. “My mom’s a good mom too. She did everything for me and my brother, begged for food in parking lots after she got fired. Went hungry so we could eat.” 

Susan’s fingers stop drumming, lips parting in nonplus. 

“Sweets isn’t my real mom but she’s the best one I could’ve asked for in here. She kept the pervy guards away from me, hooked me up with the best hooch the block has got, even smuggled me in a walkman.”

“How did she get out?” Susan asks, perplexed, unable to resist. “I don’t mean to pry but she stabbed someone in the kidney, yes?” 

“Nobody could prove it was her,” scoffs Tory. “Our relationship was a two-way street, you know. I started a brawl in the yard, created a distraction to give her cover. Landed me in the SHU for a week but it was totally worth it.” 

Susan balks, a tad startled. 

“We could be like that too,” Tory says nonchalantly. “We could help each other out, is what I mean.” 

“You’ve already been very kind to me.”

Tory has shared her snacks and saved shower stalls for Susan even when the bathrooms were crowded and she hadn’t had her own yet. She goes with her for brisk walks around the track in the afternoons before taking off at her own sprinting pace. She’s a little sarcastic, a grouch in the mornings, but all in all seems like a nice kid. Troubled, maybe, but who isn’t troubled in prison? 

“Yeah, well, you did good by Sweets. She didn’t talk about Mister Fridged Peanut Butter much but I know he smacked her around at least a couple times. He hurt you too?” 

Susan’s mouth goes dry. 

“C’mon.” Tory lightly knocks her shoe against Susan’s. “I want to be your friend but you’re always so quiet. Prison is a shitty, lonely place, it’s easier if you have friends. Spill the beans, Susie Q. Lemme in.” 

Susan hesitates and the girl lifts her head, corner of her lips tweaking upward. “It’s okay. There’s a lotta scary things in here but I’m not one of ‘em unless I have to be.” 

“Your wrist says otherwise.” Susan nods to the ink peeking out from underneath Tory’s sleeve. 

Strike First. Strike Hard. No Mercy. 

“Oh, this?” Tory lifts her arm and tugs the sleeve down, brushing her fingers over the tattoo. “These were lessons Sensei taught us at my dojo. They sound harsh, yeah, but that’s what life is. Harsh. You’ve got to fight to survive, so I’m a fighter.” 

“I see.”

“I could teach you,” she offers, eyes brightening. “I could be your sensei.” 

“Oh, goodness no,” Susan chuckles, shaking her head. 

“Hey, don’t knock it till you try it,” Tory shoots back.

“I don’t think the guards would appreciate that very much.” 

“Pfft, we play our cards right and they’ll never even know.” Tory pops her lips. “Besides, you should know how to defend yourself in here. Karate might’ve saved you from getting that shiner.” 

“I appreciate the concern, hun, but I’m not really the fighting type,” Susan titters nervously. 

Tory rolls her eyes. “So says the lady who took a nail bat to her husband’s face.” 

Susan stiffens and lowers her gaze to the floor. A centipede crawls across the concrete, its minute antennae twitching. She balls her hands into fists, clenching until her fingernails bite crescents into the meat of her palms. 

“Shit, I’m sorry.” The levity drains out of Tory’s voice. 

She shifts around next to Susan, both legs over the side of the cot as she sits up straighter. 

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, soft and sheepish. “I didn’t realize it was a sore spot.” 

“I’m just ashamed.” Susan releases her fists to bury her face in her hands. “I’m so ashamed.” 

Her black eye throbs dully and it is a familiar ache. The shame is just as familiar, like a foul slime beneath her skin. Her spine quivers as her throat knots tight and invisible hands wring her heart out like some dirty dishrag. 

“It’s okay.” A small hand comes to rest between her shoulder blades and begins to rub in ginger circles. “It’s not your fault.” 

But it is, oh, of course it is. 

* * *

  
Max grips her in a big, warm, under-the-armpits bear hug for all of the allotted five seconds and then lets go. Susan sits across from her, hands in her lap and ankles crossed. 

“What happened to your face?” 

“Um…” 

“Don’t tell me something stupid. Like a book fell off the shelf and hit you, or you walked into a pole.” 

“Okay.” Susan exhales. “Methhead Marla punched me in the face because I wouldn’t give her my pudding cup.” 

Max’s eyes stretch wide. 

“It’s not that I was unwilling to give it to her, I just didn’t realize what she wanted. She’s missing a lot of teeth, it makes her hard to understand sometimes.” 

“Jesus.” 

Susan bristles, glowering reproachfully. “Blasphemy, Max.” 

“Uh-oh, am I grounded now?” Max gives her a deadpan look. 

Susan averts her eyes. Stares down at some scratches on the tabletop. She won’t ask for her daughter’s respect. Supposes she gave up the right to do so a long time ago. A pregnant pause hangs in the air. 

“Does it hurt?” Max eventually asks in a softer tone, carrying a trace of apology. 

“Just a little.” Susan glances up and bats her hand. “Enough about me, how are you?” 

“Okay, I guess.” 

“How’s Lucas?” 

Max runs her fingers along the copper braid over her shoulder. “He’s fine. He came over last night.”

“Is the long distance making things difficult?” 

Max shrugs, propping her elbow on the table and dropping her forehead into her hand. 

Susan takes that as a yes. 

“You’re both so young and you’ve got a lot on your plates as is, juggling your class schedules and looking for jobs. It must be tough not be in arm’s reach of each other anymore. Hard having to find time to get together, coordinating with your busy schedules. But compromise and communication are key to—“ 

“Are you kidding me?” Max cuts her off with a dark, jeering laugh, gawking in disbelief. “You are the last person I want relationship advice from!” 

Susan flinches. She couldn’t argue even if she wanted to. 

“Right, well, I wasn’t speaking from experience anyway. I read it in a book. The, um, the library here has a healthy stock of self-help books.” 

“I bet those are for people who are actually getting out someday.” 

Susan inhales through her nose. “Anyway, how are your classes going?”

“Boring, mostly. My professors take me more seriously than any of the teachers ever did in high school though, so that’s something.” 

“And once you get your core classes under your belt, you’ll be able to take things you’re more interested in, I’m sure.” 

“Yeah…I still don’t know what my end goal is, Mom.” Max plays with her braid some, twirling it back and forth in an idle hand. “I haven’t decided what I want to be.” 

“You’ve got time to figure it out,” Susan reassures, offering an encouraging smile. “There are people at school who can help with that too. Advisors, academic counselors, older students.” 

Max nods and seems to perk up a bit, tone brighter when she asks, “How about you? How are your classes?” 

“I’m not actually taking any,” Susan admits. “They were all filled up.” 

It’s a half truth. The horticulture class she’d been interested in is full. She could’ve joined the art class but didn’t want to because it was led by the inmate who’d cornered her in the laundry room her first week here. 

“That’s a bummer,” Max mutters, disappointment glinting in her gaze. 

“Though perhaps I’ll learn some new skills yet. Tory wants to teach me karate.” 

Max pauses, clearly waiting for Susan to tell her it’s a joke. When it doesn’t happen, she tosses her head back, giddy laughter pealing off her tongue. Susan soaks it in. It’s the sweetest sound she’s heard in weeks. 

* * *

When Susan returns to her cell after laundry, Tory is facedown on her bunk, shoulders shuddering with tiny, almost imperceptible sobs. Susan swallows and after a moment approaches, sitting on the edge of the bunk and moving a hand to the small of her back.

“It’s only me,” she murmurs when the girl stiffens under her touch. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Tory lifts her head from the pillow, face blotchy, eyes glassy with tears. “It’s my birthday.” 

“…she didn’t come, did she?” 

Tory’s lips tremble as she shakes her head, tears spilling free and mucus dribbling from her nose. Susan chews her lip and moves her hand up and down her back in slow, soothing strokes. 

“I’m sorry,” she hums softly. 

Her hand slides off as Tory sits up, brushing her tears away on one sleeve and then ridding her snot on the other. 

“She left me behind. She just got out and forgot about me like I’m nobody! I had her back for over a year, I fucking got more time because of her!” 

Tory whips her head to Susan, stricken, breaths coming out in frazzled, ratty pants. 

“I got more time for covering her ass and I didn’t care because I loved her, I thought she loved me. But she left me behind and never looked back.” With a short, angry cry, Tory picks up the pillow and chucks it across the cell. “She fucking forgot about me!” 

Susan grabs her up in a hug, pulls the younger girl against her chest. She isn’t sure if she’s actually doing it to comfort her or to stop her from throwing more things. There are other things in here Tory could throw heavier than a pillow. Books and shoes, a couple padlocks, some interesting looking rocks they’d found out in the yard and named after classical musicians for a lack of anything better to do. 

Tory completely unravels in the embrace, clutching at Susan like a raft on a riptide. She buries her face in her collarbone and violently sobs, entire body quaking in Susan’s grasp. Wet warmth spreads across her khaki top, soaks down to her skin. 

“How could she do that?” Tory whimpers, muffled into her clavicle. “She was like my mom, how could she just forget about me?” 

Susan doesn’t have an answer for her, so she just holds her tight and hopes it is enough. 

Later she uses some of the money Max put in her commissary to get Tory a package of Hostess cupcakes. 

“I know it’s not the same as a birthday cake and we don’t have any candles, but—“ 

She’s cut short as the girl’s arms wrap around her waist in a bone-crushing hug. She squeezes the breath right out of Susan’s lungs and damn near lifts her off the ground. Only in this moment does Susan realize just how starved for affection Tory truly is. 

* * *

Slowly but surely, Susan finds something of a routine in prison. Days blur into weeks and they’re not all the same, exactly, but they’re similar enough. 

Some days are quiet days, where she and Tory play card games or tic-tac-toe once they’ve finished with their work. Sometimes, depending on whose on duty, Tory will take down the picture of the chrome cobra over her bunk and pull out the walkman hidden in the hole in the wall. She’ll put the headphones around her neck and turn the volume up all the way so if she leans close, Susan can listen to the music too. 

* * *

“Sues,” Tory calls on a particularly dull day, crouched in the corner of the cell. 

Rec time was cancelled because a fight broke out over missing Scrabble pieces. Yard time is also cancelled because of the heavy thunderstorm. 

“Hey, Sues, c’mere.” 

Susan glances up from her book and curiously sidles over. Tory motions for her to get down. 

“Look. It’s a bug battle.” 

Susan crouches beside her and follows where she’s pointing. 

On the concrete floor, there are a flurry of little ants at war with a much larger centipede. They swarm all over its body, beady and black. It writhes and thrashes, grabbing the ants in its pinschers and throwing them off. 

“Oh my,” Susan whispers, mildly awed. 

Because this day is a very boring day, they stay where they are and watch the bug battle commence. Inevitably, the ants emerge victorious. There were just too many of them. The centipede never stood a chance. 

Susan sucks her lower lip between her teeth as the ants carry its tiny corpse off through a crack in the brick. Presumably they're returning to their colony where they can all feast upon it. 

* * *

Some days are not so quiet days, where Susan gets caught alone by certain guards who’ll pull her aside, drag her into some closet or unoccupied room. She’s inevitably left picking pubic hairs out of her teeth, finger-shaped bruises imprinted upon her breasts. Less often it’s other inmates who mess with her but that happens sometimes too. Once she got shoved into the shower wall, breasts pushed against her back as the keen tip of a toothbrush shank pressed in threat between her ribs, only just deep enough to draw a bead of blood. 

Susan doesn’t even consider resistance. If she just goes slack and waits it out, eventually whoever is touching her will stop and she’ll be able to go back to her cell. Pick up where she left off in her book. She’s reading several currently, bounces back and forth between them.

* * *

“Are you okay?” 

“Fine.” 

“You sure?” Tory sounds concerned. “You’ve been staring at the same page for like ten minutes.” 

“I’m analyzing the subtextual symbolism,” Susan murmurs. 

It’s actually just difficult to focus. She’d spent the morning gagging on the cock of a correctional officer nicknamed Goliath. In fact, she’d gagged so hard she ended up vomiting and when eventually she swallowed, it wasn’t just his semen that went down but mushy chunks of her own partially digested breakfast. Susan may not resist but that doesn’t mean these things don’t stick with her. 

“Huh. That sounds pretty deep for a book titled Twenty-Five Things To Do With Cauliflower.” 

Susan hears the frown in Tory’s voice but doesn’t care to respond further. Tory seems to get the message and lets it be. 

“I’m thinking of getting another tattoo," she announces, changing the subject. 

“Oh?” 

“Yeah. Maybe a cobra on my shoulder, or another one of our sayings. If I did more words, I think I’d either get it on my ankle or my hip. Where do you think?” 

Sometimes having a kid for cellmate feels like babysitting but Susan knows she’s actually quite lucky. She could’ve gotten stuck with Methhead Marla or Baby Killer Beth. Most of the time Susan adores Tory, actually. She’s charmed by her wit and admires her dedication to her martial art of choice, even if she’s wary of getting caught as an audience. She feels bad knowing how lonely and affection starved the poor girl is, realizes she must feel abandoned in this cold, hard place where no one ever comes to see her. 

“On your hip,” Susan says thoughtfully. “More room for the letters than on your ankle.” 

“Ooh, good idea. I didn’t think of that.” 

* * *

The best days are when Max visits. 

She’s usually prickly. Still angry, Susan thinks. Maybe she’ll always be angry and Susan could never fault her for it. But angry or not, two days a month, Max always visits. 

Susan gets to hug her and even sneak little touches to her hands sometimes. She gets to smell her green apple scented shampoo and the mix of minty gum and hot cheese puffs on her breath. They get to sit together and talk, and it took going to prison and having time to talk with her for Susan to truly realize how often Neil actually prevented them from doing that at home. 

Tory gave her a shiv once, fashioned from a scrap of metal broken off a bed frame. 

“Sweets gave me that for protection, but I think you need it more,” she’d told Susan. 

Susan had tucked it away inside her mattress and didn’t think about it for a very long time. Then shortly after another storage room session with Goliath, she’d taken it out and slipped away to the bathrooms. Stood in front of the dirty mirror screwed to the wall and lifted her chin, pressed the sharp edge to the skin beneath her ear until it drew a thread of blood. 

Susan could’ve pressed in harder and dragged it all the way to her opposite ear. She could’ve bled out all over the nasty sink with its leaky nuisance of a faucet and been done. But she thought about her next visit with Max, thought about those precious five seconds where she’d get to hug her. Thought about kissing the freckles smattered across her lovely cheeks and the adorable crinkle of her nose when she was exasperated. 

Susan added just another ounce of pressure to watch a bead of blood well up underneath the shiv’s very tip, and then promptly dropped her hand. 

She’d been crying when she got back to her cell. Tory asked why and Susan remembers answering, she thinks, but does not recall the exact words she must’ve said. 

* * *

She might do it, one day. She might. Maybe it’d actually be better for Max if she did, free her from the obligation of coming to this wretched place. From having to come all the way up here just to hear her mediocre mother summarize lessons from outdated self-help books. 

She might do it just yet. 

Maybe she won’t aim for the throat when the time comes, maybe she’ll go for the wrists. Maybe that would be easier. 

She supposes she should wait until Tory gets released. Tory follows her around like a wayward duckling and it’s always something with her. 

Always, “hey, Sues, lemme show you this move!” with sparkling eyes or, “Sues, it’s cold tonight, can I get in your bunk?” teeth chattering, or, “okay, you win that round, but let’s go again. Best three outta five,” waving battered cards in her hand. 

She won’t do it today and she won’t do it tomorrow. But that doesn’t mean she’ll never do it. Maybe there will come a time when it’s the right thing to do, when Susan will adjust her grip on the handle of the shiv and know in her stomach that she’s simply meant to make a slit somewhere and gush, gush, gush until there’s no life left. 

* * *

Susan idles in the corner during rec time, stacking styrofoam cups into a tower. She’s building a castle as best she can. Always liked building sandcastles as a kid. Actually finds herself enjoying the task of building a styrofoam castle now. 

Tory’s watching a nature documentary on the television mounted on the wall. Susan glances up now and then, catching snippets. It’s pretty interesting, all about African animals, but she has to look away when the giraffes start dueling with their necks. 

Susan finds it too disturbing to watch, such graceful animals going at it like that. Apparently she isn’t the only one who thinks so. 

“Hey!” Tory snaps when Methhead Marla snatches the remote from her hand. 

“We ain’t watching this shit,” she huffs down at Tory, much easier to understand since her husband paid for her to get new teeth. 

“I had the remote first.” Tory gets up and swipes for the remote but Marla swivels out of the way. 

“Too damn bad, I wanna watch my soaps.” 

“Screw your soaps!” 

“Watch it, Kung Fu,” Marla growls, changing the channel. “Best remember Mommy ain’t here to wipe your ass no more.” 

Hurt flashes across Tory’s face. For a heartbeat Susan thinks she might cry. What actually happens, is that she kicks Marla to the floor. She pounces atop her like the cheetah that took down a gazelle much earlier in the documentary, snarling as if she really is some wild beast. The remote soars through the air and clacks against the painted brick. 

Tory grabs a fistful of Marla’s hair and smashes her face up and down into the floor. Susan hears the cartilage crunch when her nose breaks. The money her husband spent on the brand new teeth is wasted, they break and clatter to the tile like Altoids in the tin. 

Other inmates gather around, whooping and hollering. It won’t be long before the guards rush in and Susan doesn’t remember getting up but she’s already grabbing Tory by the shoulders, struggling to pull her off. The girl’s elbow swings, hits Susan square in the gut. The air whooshes right out of her, an unintended cry jerked up her throat. Pain bursts through her midsection like fireworks. 

Tory goes rigid when she realizes it’s Susan she hit. She scrambles off Marla and begins helping her up. 

“Oh, shit. Shit, Sues, I’m sorry.” 

Susan leans into her as she tries to catch her breath. Marla’s moaning on the ground, blood spilling from her crooked nose, over her split lips and chin. 

Suddenly the correctional officers appear, breaking up the crowd. Susan knows them as Toad and Chode, isn’t sure what their real names are. 

“Who did this?” demands Toad, his froggy mouth crumpled in a scowl. 

“Beth,” Susan gasps, pointing in her direction. “There was an argument over the remote and Beth went postal.” 

“What!?” she shrieks in dissent, whipping her head back and forth. “No! I didn’t do anything!” 

Marla is only semiconscious, eyelids drooping. Isn’t coherent enough to name her actual attacker. None of the other inmates come to Beth’s defense. Everyone knows what she did to her children. Pretty much everyone hates her for it. Susan isn’t the only mother in here and even the women who aren’t mothers seem to hold a particular distaste for Beth’s crimes. 

Toad cuffs Beth while Chode hauls an insensible Marla to her feet. With that, rec time is cancelled once again. 

Tory helps Susan back to their cell. 

“Thank you,” she says quietly. 

Susan nods. 

“I’m sorry I hit you.” 

This is something Susan has been told many times in her life by a handful of different people. However, she thinks this is the only time she’s actually believed in good faith behind the words. 

“You can’t fly off the handle like that,” she reprimands, hand hovering over her sore middle. 

“I know,” Tory mumbles guiltily. 

“You are too young to spend your life in here,” Susan goes on, giving her a wearied stare. “You fly off the handle like that, and they’re going to charge you with assault. They will add more time to your sentence. Is that what you want?” 

“No.” Tory unhooks her arm from Susan’s as Susan plops heavily onto her bunk. “I didn’t mean to do that, she just…” 

“She taunted you, I know, I saw. But she won’t get in trouble for taunting you the way you’ll get in trouble for knocking her teeth out. You understand that, don’t you?” 

Tory swallows and lowers her head. 

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, bowing and then slowly kneeling before Susan. 

Susan is rather surprised when the girl puts her head into her lap. She’s surprised but she doesn’t push her away. She sighs out and chews her lip, stroking her fingers through her hair. 

* * *

Susan holds Max’s hand under the table. If anyone notices, they don’t care. No one makes her stop and for that, she’s more grateful than words can express. 

“How are you doing?” 

“I’m okay,” Max hums. 

She contentedly swings Susan’s hand from side to side, seems to be in a better mood than she was the last time she came. 

“Are your classes going well?” 

Max bobs her head. “Aside from being boring? Yeah, I get good grades.” 

“My smart girl.” Susan beams proudly. 

“I got to write a paper about the history of Pac-Man, that was a nice change of pace.” 

“Why does your teacher want you to know about Pac-Man?” Susan blinks dubiously. 

Max cracks a small smile as she rolls her eyes. “That part doesn’t matter. He just cares about the grammar and cohesion and stuff. Wants us to prove we can stay on topic and write like real, professional adults.” 

“Ah.” 

“How about you?” 

“Oh, I’m fine.” 

Now Max is the one who looks dubious, cocking one copper brow. 

“They’re starting an anger management group next week. I talked Tory into enrolling with me.” 

Max’s face screws up in confusion. “You? Anger management?” 

“Mhm.” 

“Your only anger problem is that you don’t get angry enough.” 

“I hardly think that’s an issue. I’m not going for me, I wanted Tory to sign up but I didn’t think she’d do it alone.” 

Max lets go of her hand. Just like that the mood dampens. 

“It _is_ an issue,” Max insists. “You never get angry even when you should.” 

Susan purses her lips. 

“You don’t. You just let things go. Over and over, you let really fucked up shit slide without even batting an eyelash.” 

“Do you have to curse?” Susan pleads softly. “Can we speak civilly?” 

“Or you do that,” Max says pointedly, snapping her fingers. “You change the subject. You avoid everything, you sweep all your real problems under the rug.” 

“Please don’t pick on me. Not today…” 

“I’m not picking on you, it’s just true.” Max folds her arms over her chest and it feels like her gaze pieces Susan right down to the quick. “You never get angry or if you do, you pretend you’re not, you just let other people walk all over you.” 

Susan exhales tiredly, rubbing at her temples. “Really, Max?” 

“Well, you should be angry,” Max repeats. “Fuck, you should be furious!” 

“With who, Neil?” Susan tosses her hands up. “Why, what’s the point? He’s dead.” 

“Not Neil,” Max mutters. “At…” 

All of a sudden, her bottom lip begins wobbling. Mist gathers in her eyes. She rapidly blinks it back. 

“At me!” 

Max abruptly snaps to a stand. She scrambles out of her chair and hastily flees the room. Susan leaps to her feet. 

“Max, wait!”

“Settle down, inmate!” barks a guard. 

Susan wants more than anything to run after her. For just a moment, she considers it. She’s already in for life, what does she have left to lose? 

But, well, the answer to that question is visiting privileges. 

* * *

  
There are cookies at anger management. Snickerdoodles. Susan nibbles on one as she gazes around at the assortment of inmates here today. It’s a small group but she doesn’t know most of them, aside from Jen and Judy. They’re lovers who sit at her lunch table. 

Rumor is Judy killed Jen’s husband and Jen killed Judy’s fiancé so they could be together. Susan’s almost positive it’s gossip and nothing more. They would be in maximum if they carried out a pre-meditated murder plot. They almost certainly wouldn’t be in the same prison if that were the case, let alone be allowed to be cellmates. 

“Judy?” Tory raises a brow as she sits between her and Susan. “What are you doing here? You don’t have anger problems.” 

“I don’t,” she agrees. “I’m just here to support Jen. You’re doing great, babe.” 

Judy cheerfully pumps her fist in the air, eyes warm as hot cocoa. Jen just grunts, grumpy as ever, the badger she is. Nonetheless, Susan catches the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. 

Jen ends up leading the session, the first to talk. She divulges that having a short fuse had cost her a job, strained her friendships, damaged her relationship with her kids. She says she doesn’t always know how to deal with her other emotions, that it’s easier for her to give into anger than it is to confront grief or sadness. 

They take turns in a clockwise circle, other inmates standing up and expressing their experiences with their anger, why they’re angry or how it impacts them. When it comes to Tory, she hesitates so Susan gives her shoulder an encouraging squeeze. Tory takes a deep breath and pulls herself to her feet. 

“Sometimes it’s like my anger is bigger than I am,” Tory admits before the group. 

Susan irresistibly thinks of Billy kicking holes into the wall after the move. A lump forms in her throat and she sinks her teeth into the pad of her thumb. 

“When I’m pissed off, I lash out and the consequences are so, so much bigger than I think they’re going to be.” Tory’s voice thickens. “Truth be told, that’s why I’m here. I mean, that’s why we’re all here in anger management, I guess, but it’s why I’m in prison. I got pissed off and I went to throw down with the bitch who pissed me off but it just spiraled out of control. It turned into something so much worse and someone I cared about got hurt really bad.” 

Susan wonders not for the first time what exactly she was convicted of. She won’t ask. If Tory wants to tell her, then one day she will. 

“He could still be in a coma for all I know. I’m stuck in here so I don’t know squat about what’s going on on the outside, not with him or my family, or my friends, or my dojo. I don’t know anything that happens outside of this shithole and that pisses me off too.” 

Murmurs of agreement ripple through the group and Tory sits back down. 

“Does anybody who hasn’t shared yet want to share?” 

Eyes turn toward Susan. She’s the only one who hasn’t shared, barring Judy. She spares a terse smile and shakes her head. 

“Really?” Jen lifts a brow. “You went apeshit over cold peanut butter and you don’t think you’ve got anything to unpack here?” 

Judy gives her shoulder a swat. “If she doesn’t want to share, she doesn’t have to share. This is a safe space.” 

“That’s the point, it’s a safe space.” Jen looks back to Susan. “You’re supposed to tackle your rage here with us, so you don’t unleash it in the yard and get stuck in seg.” 

“I think the only person I’m really angry at is myself,” Susan murmurs, “but I don’t really know what to do with that. I don’t suppose it matters at all, anymore. Not now, not in here.” 

She stops short when she realizes she’s spoken aloud. The eyes are still on her, so she lowers her head. 

* * *

  
They won’t take Tory down to the infirmary even though she’s weak and wobbly as a newborn kitten, body pretzeled in pain on Susan’s cot, skin broiling with wrathful fever. Susan begs and pleads with teary eyes, fear heavy in her chest, but the guards just don’t care. They’re not going to do anything for Tory, they’re still holding a grudge about the food fight she’d started in the cafeteria. 

They’re going to leave a sick girl to writhe and languish just because she started a food fight. Tory’s hardly more than a kid, a bored kid locked in a box, of course she starts food fights. What do they expect?

Susan tries to help as best she can. She soaks a clean sock in a cup of water and gently dabs at the girl’s pained face. Wrings it out and folds it in half, draping it over her forehead to serve as a cold compress although it isn’t really cold, just slightly cooler than room temperature. 

“Can I lay in your lap?” 

“Of course.” 

Susan puts her pillow in her lap to make it more comfortable. Tory worms a little further up the mattress, plopping her head in between Susan’s folded legs. Susan chews her lip and strokes fingers through her sweaty hair, worry wearing on her heart and helplessness roiling through her stomach. 

Tory blinks up at her, gaze bleary and liquid bright. “Sues? You cryin’?” 

She’s trying not to. She’s trying so hard not to but if Tory can tell, she isn’t trying hard enough. 

“No,” comes out a croak as the first tear trickles down her cheek. 

“Aww, Susie Q, it’s okay.” Tory feebly reaches up, touches Susan’s chin. “I’m not gonna die.” 

Susan takes Tory’s hand in both of hers and squeezes tight, choking back a sob and brushing a kiss over her burning knuckles. It probably isn't as bad as Susan feels like it is. She's probably fine. Susan's probably just anxious because the whole thing reminds her way too much of something else. 

“Not gonna die,” Tory repeats, wrung out with fatigue and still trying to reassure her anyway. 

The last person who told Susan that died mere hours after the words left his lips and if her anxiety wasn't at full throttle before, it sure is now. 

“See?” Tory tugs down the waistband of her khakis. “Check the tat.” 

Black lettering inked crudely over the jut of her hip reads, ‘Cobra Kai Never Dies.’ The flesh underneath the fresh tattoo is swollen and inflamed this fierce, lurid red. It’s obviously, painfully infected and perhaps there is some irony in that. Susan’s never been particularly fond of irony. 

“I may be stuck in here now but once Cobra Kai, always Cobra Kai,” Tory mumbles. “And Cobra Kai never dies.”

“Okay, Tory,” Susan murmurs instead of telling her getting the stupid tattoo might just kill her, instead of shaking her by the shoulders and demanding that she let go of the damn dojo already because if anybody there truly cared about her, surely she wouldn’t be alone every Friday.

“I miss Miguel… “

“I know.” Susan strokes through her sodden hair in gentle, soothing strokes. “I bet he misses you too.” 

“Nah.” Tory gives a small head shake. “He probably hates me.” 

“Shh, don’t talk like that.”

“You don’t know what I did, Sues. You don’t know anything.” 

Everything about this rings far too familiar. Susan suddenly feels like she’s drowning but she’s not the one actually in danger here, so she bites down on her tongue to keep herself grounded in the present and concentrates on stroking her cellmate’s flushed cheeks. 

“I didn’t mean to hurt him but I did and I’m sorry.” Tory pules out a little whimper and scrunches her eyes shut. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Don’t worry about it now, Tory. Just rest.” 

Susan strokes her cheeks and her hair, doing her best to offer what comfort she can. When there is a shift change, she slowly lifts the pillow off of her lap and slides her legs out from underneath. She sets it back down as carefully as she can, jostling Tory as little as possible. With that, she shuffles out of the cell and approaches the new correctional officer on duty, the one nicknamed Chode whose touch always gropes during pat downs and whose leers always linger outside the showers. 

“What do I have to do to get you to take my cellmate to medical?” 

He cracks a wolfish grin and Susan knows, oh, she knows, but it’s okay. It’s nothing that wouldn’t happen to her anyway. Nothing that hasn’t happened to her before.

Chode tears her open against the wall in the supply closet. Seizes her throat with sausage fingers and chokes her until she passes out. He’s gone when Susan comes to, on the floor next to this filthy mop bucket. For a moment she’s so disoriented she doesn’t understand how she got here. Then the pain registers in her neck and _oh_ , that’s right. 

Susan tugs her pants back up and climbs to shaky feet. She exits the closet, quietly shutting the door behind her and making her way back to her cell. Tory is gone but when Susan lays down on her cot, it’s still toasty warm from her febrile body heat, pillow damp with sweat. They couldn’t have taken her that long ago, so Susan supposes she wasn’t unconscious for all that long, either. 

Her throat already feels gummy. She suspects that swallowing might be uncomfortable for the next couple of days. It’s worth it if it means Tory is going to be okay. If it means Susan doesn’t have to be watch the expiration of another teenager, sick and sorry and babbling, troubled face beaded with perspiration. 

* * *

  
“I should tell you what happened.” Max sits across from Susan with a severe look in her eyes. 

“What happened when?” Susan asks, frowning. 

“That night,” Max says in a low voice, the words so grave it’s unmistakable. 

“You don’t have to,” Susan firmly reasserts. “Whatever happened, what you did was warranted. You don’t have to tell me for me to know that.” 

Max’s eyes waver, teeth grazing over her bottom lip. 

“I know it in my soul,” Susan promises her, resolute. “I always have, I always will.” 

“But I should tell you,” Max repeats. “I owe you that.” 

“You don’t. You don’t owe me anything.” 

Susan wasn’t a good mother and she knows it. Knows it as well as she knows Neil got exactly what he deserved. If she’d been a good mother, she’d never have brought Neil into Max’s life to begin with. Whatever caused Max to do what she did that night, it began there. It began with Susan’s failure. Failure to see the signs, failure to make an escape once she learned what was really behind that charming smile. 

Max scoffs hotly, something almost hurt crossing her features as she gives a gruff jerk of the head. 

“Bullshit. You’re trapped like an animal in a cage and I’m—“ 

“Exactly where you should be,” Susan cuts in. She draws a sharp breath and lowers her voice an octave. “Max, please.”

Susan stretches an arm across the table and wiggles her hand. Max slides her own into it, her fingers pleasantly warm. 

“Never, ever believe you deserve anything less than your freedom,” Susan implores, squeezing her hand tight and letting go to draw away before she can be reprimanded. “There’s only one action I regret that night. It wasn’t yours and it wasn’t giving myself to the police, either.” 

Susan quickly and discreetly brushes her knuckles over Max’s cheek. The cheek she’d slapped that night. It was the one and only time Susan had ever struck her daughter and the guilt had been immediate, acid burning in her throat. Max’s head snapped to the side as the sting prickled through her own hand and Susan was sicker than sick, couldn’t even fathom how Neil had done worse to Billy on the regular. 

She’d only slapped Max out of panic, blind, incomprehensible animal panic. It didn’t make it okay. It wasn’t an excuse. Nevertheless, it’s not something Susan ever would’ve done if she weren’t panicking, caught up in a hurricane of hysteria, scarcely able to process the sheer horror of what she’d walked in on. 

Max folds her arms over the tabletop, leaning a bit closer and never breaking Susan’s gaze. 

“I know I don’t have to tell you, but I’m going to anyway.” 

“…okay.” Susan tents her fingers and waits. 

“I was on Lucas’s bike earlier that day. We weren’t really going anywhere, just riding down the street. I had my hands on his shoulders.” Max pauses and her smile is this painful, broken thing even before it crumbles off her face. “Neil saw us but I didn’t know that until I got home. He didn’t say anything to me until after you went to bed.” 

Susan had known about Lucas, although Max never brought him over. Max never brought any of her friends over, of course. 

“He told me, ‘sit down, Maxine,” and I knew I was in big trouble. I thought he was going to ground me, probably hit me. Maybe even use the belt.” 

“Did he?” Susan can hardly breathe, heart crushed in an invisible fist. 

“No, worse. He threatened Lucas, which probably doesn’t sound worse, but it was…it was how he threatened him, Mom.” Her voice drops to a whisper, low and dark. “Neil said the next time he saw Lucas, he was going to get a rope and…”

Max trails off, features contorting in a mix of fury and revulsion as Susan clamps a hand over her own mouth, stomach rolling with nausea. 

“I’m not going to repeat what he said.” Max gives a firm head shake. “I don’t want those words in my mouth. But I’ll never forget them or the way he said them. He sounded like he meant it and I just—“ 

Max is breathing hard now and Susan warily glances over to the guards by the entrance. They aren’t paying attention. They’re not even pretending to be interested in their posts, they’re chatting with each other, hands motioning in casual conversation. 

“I got scared. I got angry. I don’t know if I was more angry or more scared when I grabbed the bat.” 

“Scared. You must’ve been more scared than angry.” 

Susan knows this. She knows this because of what she’d found when the sounds woke her up. Susan had rolled out of bed, padded into the living room. Each step she took brought her closer to these noises she couldn’t identify. Slick, solid cracks and moist crunches. 

She saw Max first. Max in her pajamas swinging a baseball spiked with at least a dozen nails. Neil was prone on the carpet, limbs sprawled like a starfish on the beach, face already rendered raw hamburger. It sucked at Max’s bat as she kept pounding into it, ropy like rotten gourd pulp. Neil was certainly deader than dead but the way her daughter was swinging, she didn’t seem convinced. Chunks of meat stuck in between the nails, flew through the air and still, she just kept going.

Susan called her name and Max startled, attention wildly snapping her way. Max readied herself like she might crack Susan with the bat. For a fraction of a second, Susan even thought she would. Then it just fell out of her hands and landed harmlessly on the carpet. 

Susan’s veins froze to ice as she hurried across the gap of blood splatters that separated them and grabbed her daughter by the shoulders. 

“Max! Oh my god, Maxine, what did you do!?” 

Max turned to Neil then. Stared for a very long moment, like she wasn’t sure she understood what she was looking at. Her gaze briefly flickered to Susan before roving lower, her lips parting in the softest gasp of awe as the wetness spread in the crotch of her powder blue pajama bottoms. 

The damp, sour smell of urine joined the sharper scent of blood. 

With the bat gone from their grasp, Max’s hands were shaking. Susan stared as pale, crimson flecked fingers trembled in the air.

“Oh,” Max said as she watched them too, a small dimple forming between her eyebrows. “Oh, oh, oh.” 

“What did you do?” Susan repeated, choked with horror. 

Max licked blood off her teeth as she stole another glance at Neil and pointed to the massacred mince meat of his face with one of those shaky, shaky fingers, jiggling to and fro at the end of her hand like a worm hanging from a bird’s beak. 

“I did that,” she said first, then shrieked next. “I did that! I did that!” 

She was getting loud. Repeating herself, shrill with panic and loud and Susan thought _neighbors,_ as her own panic crested inside her like a tsunami wave. The next thing she knew, her hand had struck out. 

“I’m sorry,” she’d gasped as Max’s shocked eyes returned to her. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, b-but you have to focus for me.” 

Susan took her daughter’s face in her hands, blood smearing under her thumbs. 

“I need you to get in the sh-shower. I need you to scrub yourself from head to toe.” 

Max just gaped, moved to turn back to Neil, so Susan didn’t let her. Cinched her grip, held her face so they stayed eye-to-eye. 

“Don’t look at that, look at me. I need you to get in the shower, Max. I need you to take a good long shower and get yourself all cleaned up.” 

“What’re you gonna do?” 

Susan knew it instinctually before she knew it cognitively. Felt it in the very pit of her stomach. But her knowledge didn’t shape itself into a thought until this very moment and with that, she bowed her head in grim resignation.

“What I have to.” 

"What do you mean?" 

"Get in the shower, Maxine. Don't come back out here until I come to get you." 

Max must have heard something in her tone because she obeyed. She left for the shower in a sleepwalker’s stride. Disgust crawled over Susan’s skin as she picked up the bat, but she picked it up anyway and tightened her grip. 

She’d gone on to pound it into Neil’s face for another ten minutes or so, knocking teeth loose from gory gums, the stew of sinews and ground meat slurping the wood upon every strike. Susan had figured it was necessary to do so, to manifest a believable version of the story. She’d look more like the killer with splatter on her nightclothes and her fingerprints smudged all over the weapon. 

She’d called the police while Max was still in the shower. Didn’t want to risk her trying to talk Susan out of it. Susan never needed to know why what happened, happened. No matter the reason, she had to protect Max. It was all that mattered. 

Nonetheless, she supposes it’s good to know now. It closes the chapter on her endless wondering. There is something to be said for that. 

“You were scared,” Susan repeats, studying the Max of the present, gaze clear, solemn. “Terrified. Goodness, so many horrible things happened in that house. Things you never should’ve had to see, things I never should’ve let you live in. I’m sorry, Max.” 

“I’m not mad,” Max mumbles, shuffling her feat under the table. “Not anymore. Not at you.”

“You’re allowed to be.” 

“Hardly,” Max mutters. “You’re in here.” 

_Because of me,_ goes unspoken but is very much felt. 

“You’re allowed to be mad about that too,” Susan reasons. “I took myself away from you. It was a very selfish choice.” 

Max seems a bit thrown by that, cocks her head, brow crinkling. 

“I want you to live your life more than I want to live mine. And that’s not very fair to put on you, now is it?” 

A contemplative look falls over her daughter’s face. “I mean, I guess not…”

Susan gives an apologetic smile. “I want you to live your life and make your own mistakes, never the ones I made.” 

“Believe me, there’s no chance of that happening.” Max grunts and stamps the back of her heel against the tile. 

Susan tucks her chin down, studies the chewed fingernails in her lap. 

“Look, I love you.” 

Susan jerks her head right up. 

“I love you,” Max repeats, snappy and short as if the words themselves taste tart. “Never forget it, okay?” 

“Okay,” Susan agrees, chest bursting with warmth. 

“Is there anything I can do for you before I gotta go?” 

Susan takes a moment to consider and then bobs her head. 

“Yes. I think they have peanut butter crackers in the vending machine this month. Mind getting me a bag?” 

“Sure, Mom.” Max stands up and briskly steps around the table, giving Susan’s shoulder a brief squeeze on her way to the machine. 

**Author's Note:**

> motherfucker, my mommy issues are showing again. whoops, time to mod the comments. 
> 
> lmaoo wtf am i doing with my life, sittin here writing fanfic of fanfic of characters who barely exist in a show i don't watch with one thrown in from a show that i only watch stoned. i rly need to get a life but whatevs, supposed to be quarantining anyway ig.


End file.
